My Beloved
I wrote a short story today.
That matters because I haven’t written a short story since probably 2007. I’ve written a lot of blogs about my own life, I’ve written a ridiculous number of social media posts… but those things are relatively easy because I’m treading across boards I’ve already tread. But for whatever reason the thing that used to happen, where some random story about someone I’ve never met just starts to pour out of my head and into my typing fingertips, that thing has been dead.
I’ve been inspired by my friend Matty. We met doing musical theatre (and he will forever be the Daddy Warbucks to my Miss Hannigan), but Matty is also a very talented artist. And in quarantine he’s been painting and drawing up a storm! I’ve been blown away by the pieces he’s been working on and how he’s using this miserable quarantine time to create magic.
But there has been no magic in my head.
So a few days ago I asked The Boy to send me a photo of something, anything. I explained that I’d use the photo as a jumping off point, an inspiration for a story. I found that I desperately needed to see if I could still flex this muscle. Because we know that my brain was changed by my need for a heart transplant or by the transplant itself (or both, the neurologists I’ve seen cannot pinpoint it), and I’m not happy about it. We know that the things people used to pay me for— complex problem solving and critical thinking— well, those skills are now greatly diminished. But I wondered: is my creativity gone too?
I’m happy to say that I think it’s still there. This exercise took me a very long time to complete, there’s no doubt that I struggle for words more than I used to. Derek had to help me with some edits because my attention to detail really isn’t what it once was and that affects my grammar when writing something brand new about someone I’ve never met doing something I’ve never done.
I hope you enjoy it. For the record, here is the photo The Boy sent that inspired the story that I’ve titled “My Beloved.” And I’ve pasted the story it inspired below.
He never understood why she walked to work. But to be fair, he didn’t understand much about her at all.
“I’ll pick you up tonight, Mari. That’s why we have a car.” He shifted slightly in his chair, his body taking on a proud posture, as if a high-interest loan on a car they didn’t need, the payment for which she was now working 12 hour days, was some kind of benevolent gift.
“I find the walk refreshing. It’s sort of my ‘me’ time,” Mari replied.
This conversation, or one very much like it, happened every morning in their tiny kitchen as he sat at the small café table in the corner, laptop open to the job sites (and to a sports betting site, but he didn’t think she knew that). Mari would quietly make her lunch and begin to gather her things, the list of which grew on wet spring days like this one. Once her cosmetics were in her purse and her lunch and work shoes were in her backpack, she’d slip into her hooded raincoat and what he called her “muck boots” (he knew she hated this as her rain boots were quite stylish, but it was his little joke). She would then grab her travel mug, shrug into her backpack, shoulder her purse and head out into the damp morning.
Today was no different. Mari walked down the four flights of stairs to the street, jaywalked across it, and began walking towards the shop. As was their routine, she stopped in front of St. Claudine’s cemetery, looked over her left shoulder, and waved to his winter-white and round face, framed in the little square window of their flat. She thought she could see him giving her a little thumbs-up gesture, as if today might be the day he found a job. But she couldn’t be sure.
She loved him, but she suspected that as soon as she turned the corner past the cemetery each morning, he went back to bed. She loved him, but on some days, she grew tired of taking care of him as though he were an invalid instead of an able-bodied man who could never seem to reach his potential. She loved him, but on particularly cold mornings like this that found her walking silently past the headstones of those that had already slipped this mortal coil, she thought she might just keep on walking and never stop. Past the cemetery, round the corner, past the shop several blocks beyond, across the bridge and into a new life.
His name was Ralph, which wasn’t his fault, but on the coldest days when she wished she had the luxury of going back to bed, she thought he often lived down to his name. She generally chastised herself for thinking such ungracious things about the man who told her he loved her when she kissed the top of his head as he sat at that tiny table in that tiny kitchen. But she was awfully tired this morning and so allowed herself to think unkindly of him. And as she did, her eyes fell across what was engraved on her favorite tombstone in the tiny cemetery.
It read simply “My Beloved.”
She stopped walking, forgetting Margot’s admonishment about the importance of arriving at the shop earlier than her start time, and stared at the tombstone. Its shape—a broad sort of fleur de lis—was unusual, but lovely. The font used was pleasing, not quite Gothic, its size the perfect dimension for the stone. Even the way it was canted slightly to the left was appealing. The lack of a proper name or any dates was decidedly odd for a grave marker, but when it came right down to it, the expression said everything that needed to be said, didn’t it? She said it out loud, “My Beloved,” delighted at the sound of her “shop” voice and the warm fog it created when she said it again. “My Beloved.”
She noticed the single, wilted pink Gerbera daisy lying at the foot of the smooth and cream-colored stone fleur de lis, peeking through the last of the late winter snow that the spring rain had not yet melted away. As always, she wondered about the person – a man?—who placed it there, week after week, year after year. It was truly bittersweet, she thought, to love someone with such devotion that it compelled the bereaved to return to the same spot to honor them over and over. Maribel smiled as she did each morning, turned to walk up the street toward the corner and the shops beyond it… and left Mari behind.
The bell over the door tinkled, announcing her arrival to the shop owner, who glanced up at the clock as she walked in. Maribel glanced at it too, noticing it read 8:31 and steeling herself for the greeting she knew was coming. “Good morning, sleepyhead, glad you could join us!” Margot crowed happily. She was nothing if not both predictable and a morning person.
“Good morning, Margot. I trust last night’s receipts made sense?” She knew they did, she was meticulous, but it was their routine. She ducked behind a lime green velvet curtain, quickly stepped out of her rain boots (“they’re not muck boots,” flashed in her head), stepped into her bright pink stilettos and hurriedly tucked her purse and backpack into the cubby provided for her. As she parted the curtain again she silently mouthed “showtime,” allowed a pleasant smile to cross her face and began her work day.
***
While ostensibly hired to be nothing more than a clerk named Mari, over the years Maribel had used her considerable talents to transform Margot’s small, upscale gift shop from an imaginably-stocked but somewhat institutional cube into a secret garden. Her inspiration initially came from that same cemetery she walked past on her way to and from work every day.
Chesterton was a small town, but it wasn’t far from the city and over the years as city dwellers sought a quieter life, the town saw an influx of revenue. The tiny brick building that was once St. Claudine’s parish had become a private bungalow whose owners presumably didn’t mind a sideyard full of the dead and buried (and Beloved). The new owners, seeking a more modern look, had the original fence and gate, now a rusted and peeling white, removed. Maribel was walking home one summer evening as the couple was painting its sleek replacement and, as was her way, began to chat them up.
She asked, as was also her way (“you’ll never know if you don’t ask,” her Mom had always told her), what they planned to do with the original gate and was delighted that they planned to have it hauled off with the rest of the old fence. Ralph was less than delighted when she asked him to bring it to Margot’s the next day.
“It’s too heavy for me to carry, Ralph,” she explained to him. “Just please take a break from your job search this afternoon and bring it on over.” When he did (did he appear a bit surly about it?) she helped him wrestle it through the front door as the bell tinkled and Margot looked on, her face a study in uncertainty about Maribel’s plan.
But Maribel had already painted the drab, reddish brick wall behind the cash register a lovely shade of cream and worked herself into a lather while scuffing and weathering the paint job until it was just right. When she and Ralph placed the gate against it, Margot smiled. “It’s perfect.”
Since then, Maribel had found and placed treasures all over the store. Some of her large finds, like the pink marble-topped table she discovered at a yard sale were used as display pieces. But some of them she sold and Margot let her keep the money. Margot’s husband was a wealthy man who bought her the shop to keep her busy (and presumably happy) and she was a big believer that every woman needed a little “running money,” as she called it. She paid Maribel in cash when these lovely found objects sold, and Maribel tucked the cash into a carved wooden box that she kept in her work cubby. Each time she closed that box, she willed herself to forget its contents. And while that was becoming more difficult (she would soon need a bigger box), Ralph remained none the wiser.
There were soft white can lights in the ceiling of the shop, a painted and scuffed wooden floor, and a faded rag rug behind the register, which sometimes soothed Maribel’s aching feet. Realistic greenery festooned with fairy lights climbed the shelves and walls, crept up the old cemetery gate behind the cash register, and had begun to reach toward the crystal chandelier hanging overhead. And as the seasons changed, so did the flowers growing within that greenery.
The change in the shop had been enchanting enough for Margot to change the name from simply “Margot’s,” to “Margot’s Secret Garden.” This too, delighted Maribel, who always felt more like a Maribel than a Mari while she was there, and who even changed her name tag to reflect the new person she was becoming. Or the old person she was returning to.
***
Margot generally left shortly after noon and today was no different, but her Secret Garden closed at 8:00. Maribel balanced the small cash drawer, matched the credit card receipts against the store’s POS system, and sat quietly for a moment in her shop. Yes, Margot’s name graced the sign and her husband’s name the deed, but the magic within those walls was all Maribel’s. The store’s clientele sought her guidance for just the perfect gift or pick-me-up (and these monied and well-coiffed ladies needed lots of pick-me-ups), the delivery people were always happy to chat over a cool cucumber water in the summer or a hot tea in the winter with the guileless girl who had grown up in their town, the sales reps found her taste exquisite.
Before she ducked behind the curtain again, she stared at her reflection in the window separating her secret garden from the dark street. Her eyes traced the lines of her figure in the fitted black dress, she smiled at the pop of pink from her stilettos, and allowed herself to be Maribel for a moment longer. Then she exchanged Maribel’s soft kid leather shoes for Mari’s rain-not-muck-boots. She tucked $120 into the wooden box with the fleur de lis carved into its top and $20 into the pocket of her rain coat, which she folded across her arm. She turned off the chandelier, set the shop’s security alarm, walked out, closed and locked the door behind her.
The walk home each night was her transition time, a chance to think about the treasures she sold that day and to wonder about the nooks and shelves these delights were gracing in their new homes. She thought of how nice it would be to be invited into those homes one day, to live how her clients lived, to enjoy a cocktail and listen to their laughter, which she imagined tinkled like the bell over the shop door.
Tonight she made an unusual stop at the little market on the corner and bought a small bouquet of pink Gerbera daisies. The clerk said “Maribel, what a lovely name” and she found herself surprised to see her nametag still pinned to her dress. Her own laughter tinkled like a bell in her ears and she said “oh, thank you.” She didn’t correct him.
She turned onto her street, staying on the cemetery side until she reached the gate and then stepping furtively inside as the first light of the rising moon lit up the cream-colored fleur de lis. She pulled one pink daisy from the bouquet and placed it next to the wilted one and hoped both the bereaved and the Beloved would understand. Then she slipped back through the gate, crossed the street, and entered her apartment building.
When she reached the top of the four flights of stairs, she was surprised to see Ralph standing in the doorway, smiling. “I got the job, Mari. I got the job!”
She looked at the white walls in the corridor and at Ralph’s white, earnest face. She pulled the pink bouquet close to her chest, one of its blooms now touching her nametag. And she said, “That’s wonderful, Ralph. But please, call me Maribel.”